Archive for July, 2013

Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt’s venture capital fund has invested $3 million in a very young data startup. Israel-based Datorama just brought on a sales team a few weeks ago, but things appear to be moving at a rapid pace. The company has signed 14 paying clients in around four months.

Datorama offers a cross-media marketing data integration technology for TV, social, video, search, CRM data, and even print. The promise of cross-media or “omni-channel” marketing platforms has been made time and time again by countless companies claiming to have systems that allow marketers to integrate data, track campaigns and measure them seamlessly across various channels.

Whether anybody’s really attained this holy grail is arguable. However, Schmidt’s fund, Innovation Endeavors, may have gotten involved because of the firm’s ability to attract clients in such a brief period, suggested Datorama CEO and co-founder Ran Sarig.

Hearst Magazines has hired Todd Haskell away from The New York Times, where he had been group VP-advertising since 2007, to become senior VP and chief revenue officer of Hearst Magazines Digital Media, a new position.

Mr. Haskell will oversee sales and marketing for Hearst’s 24 websites, including both magazine and pure-play digital sites.

“Hearst Magazines Digital Media is in growth mode, and Todd’s leadership and expertise in digital advertising, publishing and business development will continue the forward momentum,” said Michael Clinton, president-marketing and publishing director at Hearst Magazines, in a statement.

Mini’s attempt to ride the Anthony Weiner bandwagon with bathroom-mirror photo from a fake Twitter account was sophomoric and didn’t circulate widely. But it was just funny enough to pass muster with two social media experts who said it probably appeals to Mini’s target market of younger, more irreverent car buyers.

As the world knows by now, the New York City Mayoral candidate turned out this week to have sent racy photos to unfortunate women under the alias “Carlos Danger” even after he resigned from Congress for similar behavior.

Unable to resist the new media firestorm, Mini ad agency Butler, Shine, Stern & Partners created a fake Twitter handle — @CarlosDMotor — and tweeted a pic of a towel-clad Mini snapping a selfie in a bathroom.

Pinterest is continuing the lay the groundwork for its ad business. The company announced that it will start recommending pins and boards to users based on sites they visit that have the “Pin It” button embedded.

It marks the first time the network has put the massive amount of information it has at its fingertips about users’ web activity — made possible by the ubiquity of the “Pin It” button — to use. While the current implications of that data collection are limited to content relevancy, it’s not hard to see what it could mean for the company’s ad business — which still doesn’t exist — down the road.

Mentos is capitalizing on the narcissism that fuels social media by creating personalized news bulletins that make your Facebook activity look exciting enough to be broadcast on network television.

As part of Mentos’ “Stay Fresh” campaign, Bartle Bogle Hegarty London has launched a global digital platform that creates individual video reports using an app — on Facebook or standalone — called “Fresh News.”

The bulletins make up a 24-hour news channel that serves up a constant stream of humorous news reports by pulling in material from users’ updates on Facebook and connected social media accounts, including Foursquare. Two news anchors present a satirical show highlighting a user’s recent escapades, and emphasizing how “fresh” the subject may or may not be, depending on what he or she has been posting lately.

The migration of Facebook’s user base to mobile devices has been seen as an existential threat to the social network, but its mobile ad revenue is starting to keep up. It grew to 41% of total ad revenue in the second quarter, sending its shares up more than 17% to $31 after-hours trading.

While Google and Yahoo struggle with mobile, Facebook seems to have figured it out. Mobile has climbed steadily upward as a percentage of Facebook’s total ad revenue since the third quarter of last year. It grew from 14% to 23% to 30% and now made the biggest quarter-over-quarter jump to 41%.

Considering the global patterns of Facebook usage, demonstrating mobile ad revenue acceleration is critical for the company. There were 819 million mobile monthly active users on Facebook as of June 30, up 51% over the previous year. That’s 71% of the total who access the social network at least once a month.